


Without You, It's--

by furiosity



Series: Eternal Summer (Right out of Hand) [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Episode Tag, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2023956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While packing for a cross-country move, Haruka and Makoto find a box full of letters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without You, It's--

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, m! ♥♥♥ SPARKLES

"Do you remember this, Haru?"

Haruka turned to look. Makoto, seated on the floor a few paces away, was holding up some loose-leaf papers stapled together, all neat columns of numbers and abbreviations: a swimmer's training regimen. Makoto was giving him a special kind of look: one that said Makoto expected Haruka to remember what this was. If he failed to remember, Makoto would feel disappointed, even though he would try really hard not to show it. Haruka didn't like disappointing Makoto.

He peered closer at the papers and spotted the grease stain in the lower corner of the first page: it was so old the paper bore a translucent sheen, though it would be rough and grainy to the touch. Next to the stain were the words _Muscles aren't built in a day!_ That grease had once been on a pizza.

"Chocolate flavoured rice balls," Haruka said with a small smile.

"Third year of high school," Makoto added, beaming. "So long ago I don't remember how queasy those things made me any more."

"It's enough that they did," Haruka remarked, peering into the fabric-covered box Makoto had next to him, stuffed to the brim with letters and postcards. 

Haruka fished out a letter sticking out of the pile, one corner bent slightly from having had the box lid on it.

_Dear Makoto-senpai, Haruka-senpai,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. Nagisa and I have settled nicely here in the mountains, though I must complain about the weather as it's been quite dreadful ever since we've arrived. We also barely get any kind of reception up here, but at least there is a wonderful fireplace in our living room. The few hours during which we're not being future famous archaeologists can be whiled away writing letters by the firelight! (Nagisa is less than enthusiastic about this particular activity, I must admit with no small amount of chagrin. I do believe he has decided to send you both postcards instead.)_

_Speaking of which, it was so very nice to receive both of your postcards from Canada. Nagisa is reading this over my shoulder and he told me to tell Haruka-senpai that while his heartfelt description of the beauty of Niagara Falls was quite poetic, he would have liked it if Haruka-senpai had said a few words about himself as well._

The word _he_ in _he would have liked it_ was scribbled over, with a _we_ as roughly scrawled as the rest of the letter was orderly and precise. Haruka smiled to himself again and hunted for the aforementioned postcard. It depicted the colourful wood-carving of a large crow nestled at the foot of a small, moss-covered roadside shrine. On the back, Nagisa's messy script informed Haruka that it was very cold, but the cafeteria offered strawberry shortcake as a daily dessert option so he never wanted to leave. There were seven cute wild animal stickers attached to the bottom of the postcard, partially obscuring Nagisa's name. No one looking at this card would believe that the sender was twenty-six years old and had a master's degree in architectural conservation.

Those had come just a few weeks ago. Rei and Nagisa were so far away from civilisation, Haruka and Makoto would probably be all settled at their new place by the time the other two found out they'd moved.

"Why are you going through them one by one?" Haruka asked, handing the letter and postcard back to Makoto. "Let's just pack the whole box."

Makoto shook his head. "There are also a bunch of old receipts in here. I want to find them and throw them out so I can add these other postcards. So they're all in one place."

"Okay." Haruka picked up a book from a nearby stack to see if it would fit into the gap in the box he had been filling before Makoto showed him Gou's old training regimen. A passing glance at the title on the cover -- _Never Let Me Go_ \-- made his heart skip five times.

_"Are you with me because you want to be with me? Or are you with me because I want to be with you?"_

_Haruka is so taken aback by the suppressed pain threaded through Makoto's voice that he just stands there staring at him mutely. He's never thought about it in that way. It's not a matter of wanting to or not wanting to. For Haruka, there's no possible reality in which Makoto is absent._

_Minutes pass. Makoto's mouth makes a hurt shape Haruka's never seen before. His shoulders sag; he lowers his eyes and turns his head aside, sighs very quietly, and leaves._

_Haruka doesn't even realise he has_ left _until Makoto doesn't come back that night, or the next day, or the day after that. His absence is so enormous that Haruka can't do anything right. He barely eats; sleep comes in dribs and drabs, and he startles awake at every susurration, waiting for Makoto to climb into bed next to him, soft and warm, but he never does. He never picks up his cell phone, either. The book he had received from the twins and had been determinedly reading before bed for weeks --_ Never Let Me Go _\-- lies on the bedside table. At a particularly low point, Haruka starts hoping that maybe Makoto will come back at least to find out how the book ends._

_On the third day, work sends Haruka home after he stands frozen over the ingredients for someone else's dinner and wonders if he'll miss Makoto's return. When he gets back to the empty apartment, Haruka calls Makoto's parents' landline._

_"Tachibana residence," Ran chirps._

_"Makoto," Haruka says. "Is Makoto--?"_

_"It's for you," Ran says, not into the receiver._

_"Who is it?" Makoto's voice. Haru's pulse ramps up to ten million beats per second and he wants to become an electromagnetic wave so he can travel through the phone directly to Makoto's house._

_"Dunno! They didn't say."_

_"Hello?" Makoto's voice so close in his ear that if Haru shuts his eyes, he can pretend there's no distance. But he doesn't want to pretend anything._

_"Come back," he mumbles. "Without you, it's meaningless."_

Haruka put the book down and climbed over five stacks of other, less significant, books to Makoto's side. That had been three years ago, but whenever Haruka thought about it, he had to reassure himself that Makoto was really there. Touching as many parts of Makoto as he could reach worked well. 

"At this rate we'll never get this stuff packed up," Makoto tried to protest, reluctantly. 

"We have until morning," Haruka said, crawling on top of him. "We can sleep on the train." 

[end] 

**Author's Note:**

> The book mentioned is of course _Never Let me Go_ by Kazuo Ishiguro.


End file.
